The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Spurgeon

More recently, moving into the nineteenth century, the theonomic logic of an evangelical legend, the great Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, is abundantly clear. This great Victorian churchman known to many historians as, ‘the last of the Puritans’ wrote a political manifesto that contemporary missiologists would do well to read. Spurgeon held that the civil sphere, like every other, was to be under the absolute sovereignty of God and his law: I long for the day when the precepts of the Christian religion shall be the rule among all classes of men and all transactions. I often hear it said, ‘do not bring religion into politics.’ This is precisely where it ought to be brought and set there in the face of all men as on a candlestick. I would have the cabinet and members of Parliament do the work of the nation as before the Lord....44 It was the precepts of the law of God that was Spurgeon’s primary concern in this statement. This is evident in his published political philosophy for the Christian, (which was prompted by the Education Bill of 1870 concerning the state takeover of education) which he framed in the form of a series of penetrating questions. In the first question he asks, “are not all mankind under law to God, and where and when did the king of all the earth announce that nations were to be free from His control, and free from all recognition of His existence and authority.” 45 In his third question he asks regarding the nation state and private companies, “are not both government and the company still bound to the laws of God; as for instance, that which allots for one day in seven for rest...if it be true, that both are free from the allegiance to the law of God, where is this affirmed or implied in Scripture?” 46 In questions five and six he recognizes clearly that the rejection of Christian civil law is the de facto establishment of religious atheism that would inevitably persecute the Christian faith.47 Thus in question eleven he asks, “is it not true that Parliaments, and kings and nations, may say, ‘Let us break his bands asunder and cast his cords from us,’ such language ill becomes Christian men.” 48 Lewis Drummond correctly summarises the source of Spurgeon’s convictions: “That philosophy grew out of his basic theology, namely, that God is sovereign over all of life, and that includes politics, business, the home and every other aspect of one’s being.”

Building an entire Christian cosmology on a false interpretation of Matt 5:17 seems rather foolish and even dangerous.

A fundamental hermeneutical principle, frequently repeated by Theonomists, is that if the New Testament does not explicitly abrogate a law then it is still in force. It is reminiscent of standard Reformed argumentation for the continuing validity of the moral precepts of the Mosaic code but also assumes the peculiar Reconstructionist two-fold distinction in the law. Bahnsen puts it this way: “We should presume that the Old Testament standing laws continue to be morally binding in the New Testament unless they are rescinded or modified by further revelation.” In order to support this argument, he spends a great deal of time in exegesis of Matthew 5:17 arguing that the word “fulfilled” there is to be taken with the force of “confirmed.” According to Bahnsen, Christ has “confirmed” the entire law of the Old Testament and hence anything not personally fulfilled by Christ on behalf of the believer is still required of the faithful in the New Covenant period. In other words, though Christ’s saving work has made obsolete the ceremonial code, Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:17 are taken to prove his confirmation of the believer’s duty to keep the civil law (as part of the moral law). Bahnsen’s exegesis is directly opposed to the dispensational formula here (“if an OT command is not repeated in the NT, it is no longer binding”), and probably derives from that conflict. Hence, we observe that this axiom is the inverse of the dispensational premise of dealing with Old Testament law. Whatever positive or negative response one has to Bahnsen’s principle, it can be granted him, and his case for the binding authority of the case law still remains inconclusive — if his argument for the twofold division of the law is not conceded to be compelling. In other words, if one grants Bahnsen his argument on Jesus’ “confirmation” of the law, and his hermeneutic of continuing validity, and yet continues to hold to a threefold rather than a twofold division of the law, then all Bahnsen’s argument proves is the continuing validity of the moral law. His argument cannot be sustained apart from the rectitude of his twofold division. taken from his article here: Moses' Law For Modern Government

if some paragraphs or statements are taken out of context, they might be used to support any theological view.

That I protest too much, which means that even I know they are right.